soutane

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. A cassock, especially one that buttons up and down the front.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. a long gown with sleeves and buttons at the front

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. A close garnment with straight sleeves, and skirts reaching to the ankles, and buttoned in front from top to bottom; especially, the black garment of this shape worn by the clergy in France and Italy as their daily dress; a cassock.

"If you'll come to the surgery with me, Father, I'll cleanse those cuts for you," I offered, suppressing a smile at the spectacle the fat little priest presented, soutane flapping and argyle socks revealed.

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"The youthful populace of Dublin are being sucked out of the churches by the ideological vacuum; on to the streets, then into the bars and restaurants which have colonised the city centre. Where once burly men in soutanes enforced the creed, now burly men in black overcoats enforce the guest list."Psychogeograpy by Will Self, 102

"He saw the orthodox priest arriving from the neighboring village after a long hike over hills and through rocky gullies. His floor-length black soutane was spattered up to the knee with yellow clay and pollen from the broom blossoms."Don Juan: His Own Version by Peter Handke, translated by Krishna Winston, p 43

"'We see women flogging saints' statues,' Ozouf reports. 'Priests' soutanes drop to reveal the dress of the sans-culottes; nuns dance the carmagnole. A cardinal and a whore walk on either side of the coffin of Despotism.' News of revolutionary victories was often greeted with firecrackers, drums, singing, and dancing in the streets. 'They are like madmen who ought to be tied up, or rather like bacchantes,' the mayor of Leguillac remarked of the local revolutionaries, while the siegneur de Montbrun observed with distaste that 'they danced around like Hurons and Iroquois.'"—Barbara Ehrenreich, Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), 110